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WASHINGTON – The head of the Veterans Affairs Department would take control of struggling VA hospitals and would have new powers to hire and fire employees under legislation to be introduced Tuesday by Rep. Martha Roby of Montgomery.

The proposal would require VA officials in Washington to send a team of turnaround specialists to agency medical centers experiencing chronic problems with patient care, customer satisfaction and employee morale.

Roby drafted the bill after more than a year of turmoil at the Central Alabama Veterans Health Care System. She’s asked repeatedly for VA officials in Washington to take over CAVHCS, but it hasn’t happened.

“What can I do? I can pass a bill that says I’m tired of asking, and now I’m telling you that you have to do this,” Roby said Monday.

The legislation is modeled, in part, on the Alabama Board of Education’s policy that gave the state superintendent power to take over and stabilize school systems in financial or academic trouble.

“It’s an embarrassment if they showed up and cleaned house and took over,” Roby said. “Hopefully, this will be a motivating factor for failing medical centers to get in gear.”

Her bill would create the Office of Failing Medical Centers Recovery, led by a new undersecretary of veterans affairs. The office would be required to intervene in at least two and up to seven VA medical centers with the most severe problems.

Selecting troubled hospitals would be based on dozens of criteria already measured by the Veterans Health Administration, such as health care-associated infections, readmission rates, in-hospital mortality rates, the turnover rate of registered nurses, and how long patients have to wait to get an appointment.

Facilities with the worst ratings would be labeled “failing” and subject to takeover. Roby said she didn’t know if CAVHCS would immediately qualify.

CAVHCS has had an interim director since last August. The former director was fired in part for failing to act quickly enough on two cases of employee misconduct. There were also fraudulent attempts to cover up long wait times for patients, X-rays that went unread, and falsified information on medical records.

Roby’s proposal is likely to be controversial because it would allow the intervention team to take shortcuts in firing and transferring workers, and to hire new employees at higher wages.

The U.S. House is expected to vote soon on legislation that would make it easier to remove or demote VA employees for misconduct or poor performance, but some Democrats fear that would weaken the rights of federal workers.

Roby said the VA in Washington needs additional powers to intervene and make changes.

“One reason the bureaucracy hasn’t turned around the problem is that they’re not empowered to. We have plenty of consultants and help teams, but they’re toothless,” she said.